


The Magician's Apprentice - Series Nine - Episode One (Meta/Review)

by Boji



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode Review, Gen, Meta, Reviews
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-22 19:52:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4848299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boji/pseuds/Boji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Episode written by Steven Moffat</p>
<p>Long meta review. Very long... There be spoilers here sweeties!</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Magician's Apprentice - Series Nine - Episode One (Meta/Review)

**Author's Note:**

> Episode written by Steven Moffat
> 
> Long meta review. Very long... There be spoilers here sweeties!

I loved this episode. Just adored it! 

From the teaser set up, to cannonical continuity, a feisty, fabulous, Clara (not seen often enough but warmly remembered, first and foremost from her first ever Christmas Special appearance in _"The Snowmen"_ ) and _amazing_ acting from Peter Capaldi, Michele Gomez and yes, Jenna Coleman too, this was a fantastic episode. At its heart, it takes us right back to the question which was haunting the Doctor all last series:

Doctor: " _Am I a good man?_ "  
Clara: " _… I don't know. But I think you try to be. And I think that's probably the point._ " 

Goodness is defined (in Steven Moffat's Who-writing) through action and choice, but he also warned ( _well okay, Jamie Mathieson did, in["Mummy on the Orient Express"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2474630)_ ) that: _"Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones, but you still have to choose."_ And this episode - in its entirety - is leading up to the bad choice the Doctor may or may not make, right before the cliff-hanger cuts to end credits. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. 

_The Magician's Apprentice_ opens on a battlefield, anywhere and anywhen. A flat, muddy, plain. An alien no man's land, bi-planes swooping down overhead. "What war is this?" the Doctor asks a little boy caught in the crossfire. _"Just.. the War",_ the child replies.

The Great War was how the First World War was once known. This war (on a planet unnamed at the start of this episode) is - it is thus implied - a precursor to the time war; just as the First World War led to the Second, a greater catastrophe is born out of embers of a war which preceded it. In the years of centenary commemoration (of the 1914-18 conflict) this correlation is highly apt. More so, given the Daleks were based on Nazi ideology, as regard their obsession with the purity of their race. Smoke billows across muddy fields. A hand-mine pops up through the soil, waving - one eye in the centre of each palm. The imagery reminded me both of the skeleton army in Greek Mythology ( _Jason and the Golden fleece_ ) grown from dragon's teeth, sewn into soil, but also of a _Hamsa:_

_… the symbol of an eye in the palm of a hand, usually the right hand…][...a symbol of protection against the evil eye (bad luck caused by jealousy from others) and danger in general and can been seen as a good luck charm in that way….]_ 


  
  


Here the meaning quoted above is inverted into nightmare, just as the innocence of a little boy will be shown to be later inverted, through time, space, and a Doctor's action - or inaction - into a similar nightmare. The child becomes the hand. These slow, waving, turning, mud-caked hand mines are striking, and more than a tad creepy. But nothing, nothing (not even the final moments of the episode) is as shocking as the moment this boy, trapped and facing death, tells the Doctor his name is Davros. The look on Peter Capaldi's face: pure horror. What a fantastic hook that look was leading into the unfolding episode!

_Davros made the Daleks, but who made Davros?_

In the Moffat-verse _Doctor Who_ grows less linear each and every series. The [prologue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-fFyrxbSes) (only released on-line) obviously takes place after the teaser (discussed above) and possibly, just after the Sisterhood of Kahn send Colony Sarff and his hissing coils packing.  
  
Ohila:" _Did something happen?_ "  
Doctor: " _No._ "  
Ohila: " _Was it recent?_ "  
Doctor: " _Yes._ "  
  
The Doctor hesitates before giving High Priestess Ohila this final answer, Peter Capaldi gesticulating, a movement of agile hands showing indecision, an inability to formulate the right answer. And so, we realise that whatever happened was recent - at least for the Doctor. But it wasn't so in linear time, nor was it recent for Davros. In fact the last time the Doctor saw Davros was the first time Davros ever saw the Doctor. Steven Moffat places Davros in the timey-wimey gordian knot of the Doctor's timeline in much the same way as he once placed River Song therein, with her [_First Night_ and her _Last Night._](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xwp5yy_doctor-who-first-and-last-night_shortfilms)

Playing with time in this non-linear manner, Steven Moffat pens a series opener with all the thrills and spills of a finale. We - fans and casual viewers, young and old - have been waiting for the Doctor's return since Boxing Day. Steven Moffat, being the fandom tease he is, has written an episode where the Doctor doesn't appear for almost all of the first half of the episode, having exited stage left at the end of the teaser. Half way through the episode, he makes one hell of an entrance.

  


It's one which reminded me strongly of Fiona Shaw's _Mother Courage & her Children_ in [Deborah Warner's 2009 production which I saw the National Theatre.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttRy1K0kpyI) Did Steven Moffat see that production? Or was the idea, the Doctor's entrance, inspired by a [ _30 Seconds from Mars_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcps2fJKuAI) video? I wonder.

A three week party. One last hurrah. Moffat has the doctor arrive on stage bestride a tank, strumming an electric guitar. The universe's greatest pacifist brings a tank to an axe fight, although according to the inter-webs [not an "axe" guitar](http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132307). He enters playing his theme tune, at least I _think_ he does. Implicit is the fact that it's the closing night of the Doctors tour of time and space, his final performance before he hands himself over to Colony Sarff (who was tasked with finding him) and Davros. And this Medieval tourney is part fan convention, part stadium rock show. It really is [Capaldi strumming that guitar](http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/fun/s7/doctor-who/news/a652358/rocktor-who-watch-peter-capaldi-play-the-guitar-in-amazing-vine-video.html#~pppyulYU6X7B91) \- his riffs and chords heralding Missy and Clara's arrival. Although, given the guitar riff he plays when Missy walks down on to the tourney ground, I'd say the Orbison nod was just for Clara. 

Clara: " _Did you see me?_ "  
Doctor: " _When do I not see you?_ " 

A lovely inverted nod to the first episode last series when Clara couldn't see her Doctor standing right in front of her, wanting to be ~~loved~~ accepted because he had short hair, instead of floppy hair, wrinkles in place of earnest features. And Twelve was no longer Eleven. Given the fact that _we know_ Clara Oswin Oswald is, and always was, the _Impossible Girl_ , given the fact that the series promo shot this year has Jenna Coleman in similar garb to what she was wearing when the third Doctor [zoomed past her in his car, Bessie](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/289497082273908285/) \- I do wonder if the comment above can be taken as given that he means he always sees her, and always did, throughout each of his regenerations. The Doctor's overt, easily offered hug (much needed as he seeks solace in his friend's embrace) is - of course - a direct inverse moment, mirroring back to the last series’s finale. For this too is a farewell hug.

Reaching back through all of time, space - and the BBC _Doctor Who_ cannon - Steven Moffat has placed the Doctor in an impossible situation, one the Doctor himself once imagined as a nightmare scenario, building this entire episode around [a scene from _Genesis of the Daleks_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PXdwqlJ19U). That scene, projected onto a screen straight from Davros' RAM memory and the BBC archive questions:

_The Doctor : "If someone who knew the future, pointed out a child to you and told you that that child would grow up totally evil, to be a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives... could you then kill that child?"_ 


It's a question asked this episode and answered by a cliff-hanger. A question to be answered at the end of the barrel of a gun, held by the doctor. What would you do to save millions of lives? What would you do to save a friend? That's the question first faced by Clara and Kate Lethbridge Stewart from the moment they realise that the dangers faced globally - from a fleet of aircraft suspended in the sky - are _nothing_ compared to the dangers the world faces with Missy returned. That is the question before Missy, as she searches time and space, in vain, for the Doctor who has disappeared. And then? The danger escalates.

Any thought viewers of _Sherlock_ may have about the return of Missy and her possible comparisons to Moriarty and Sherlock (she as arch-nemesis of the Doctor, he as arch-nemesis to Sherlock) ought to know that the comparison predates Moffat, as show runner, by decades and Michele Gomez's portrayal by a whole host of actors. Apparently, it was producer Barry Letts who [first introduced the concept](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_Doctor_Who) of a Moriarty like recurring villain back in the days of John Pertwee's Doctor, this in the early 1970's. It was Letts's idea that the role should go to Roger Delgado. Fans of the classic series have been mentioning on the inter-webs that Michelle Gomez's portrayal does pay homage to Delgado, whose 'Master' was forever cheating death. 

As a resurrection / re-appearance, I adored the tongue in cheek use of the lyrics from _Hey Mickey_ even more than the nod to old school BBC children's television - i.e. _Play school_ (Missy coming in through the square window, which implies that everyone at the Tower - or even on earth - is square, where she or time lords are not) and to _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ \- large over-sized head and small neck. Alice in this case isn't Missy, but Clara who followed a white rabbit with a pocket watch into a blue police box. The Doctor? He's never on time either.

Over an espresso coffee, in a village square, Missy asks for help the only way she knows how - at the end of a threat. At stake? The Doctor's life. Both his _actual_ life (in that it's revealed this is apparently the last day of his life - again!) and his confession dial, which could be seen as the story of his life. 

_"Death is for other people."_

That's a quote. Oh not from Missy, but from Agatha Christie's _And then there were none_ which has to have been a direct influence on Mathieson's _Mummy on the Orient Express._ That novel? People are being picked off one by one from an island resort. People who, it is later revealed, committed a crime and got away with it. The Doctor's crime? Well, for all that Clara asks him, horror in her voice, what he's done, the Doctor's sentence is self-inflicted, for inaction - once again. We learn he fled from the child Davros on a battlefield, as he once fled galactic battlefields in the time war.

_"How's a Time Lord supposed to die?_ Clara asks Missy.  
_Meditation. Repentance and acceptance. Contemplation of the absolute._

And the production crew tease here too, releasing [The Doctor's Meditation](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x377bko), which is anything but. Bors being openly called an idiot by the Doctor (in this minisode) while the Doctor is referred to as a magician, brought to mind tarot cards and their meanings. Is every companion a [fool](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fool_\(Tarot_card\))? Do they all grow into being [magicians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magician_\(Tarot_card\))?

At the start of this series we see Clara who has grown into a fully fledged companion, with all that entails. UNIT have the school office on speed dial and - in the moment she first spots a plane hanging in the sky, uncaps a marker pen and draws a circle on the widow, encircling said plane - we see Clara having become what the Doctor turns all his best companions into: a version of himself. Observant. Sharp. Questioning. Fierce. And, brilliant. The implication, or reading of this, can be seen as a direct inverse mirror to Davros' Dalek children, the Doctor's children being _his_ companions.

_That_ is a much more generous reading than Missy's take, which places all companions on a leash, puppies out for a walk across time and space with their time lords. Missy's comment does echo back (through Steven Moffat's writing) to one Mycroft Holmes, commenting that friends are goldfish. But, given Missy's flirting antics ( _"Traps are my flirting_ ") and the canonical competitiveness between the Doctor and his arch enemy, I think her take is best understood as a time lord's prejudiced view on lesser species which have so much of the Doctor's attention. Species with a shorter lifespan, who reproduce and have lower, base, emotions which time lords claim to have evolved past. Moffat may also be nodding to some form of an Aristotelian ideal of heroic friendship, as the ultimate relationship, but it's an allusion which seems half-formed and probably unconscious on his part. What is a lovely conscious irony is Missy's supposedly superior position, while revealing herself to be a playground bully: _"Davros is your archenemy? I'll scratch his eye out!_ In the annals of _Classic Who_ the Master spent centuries, and many an adventure, trying kill, outwit or outdo the Doctor. But, _"the Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend”_ (quote apparently from the Arthashastra by Kautilya) and Missy - previously the Master - is the enemy of the Daleks as much as the Doctor is and the Doctor and the Master have collaborated against a common enemy in the past - in [_The Claws of Axos_](https://scifijubilee.wordpress.com/2013/10/07/doctor-who-classic-sereis-the-claws-of-axos/) for instance. 

In the _Magician's Apprentice_ we see Missy worried for the Doctor, apparently joining forces with him, playing, investigating, testing Clara and the prison environment they find themselves in. She opens an airlock and goes for a walk, almost dancing across a starry expanse which feels like ground - not floor. Utterly confident, until the moment the illusion of space falls away and Missy sees Skaro, home planet of the Daleks. It's a gorgeous scene and phenomenal acting from Michele Gomez who freezes, just momentarily. A barely veiled look of horror, at the realisation that Skaro has been rebuilt has us realising that the Master too was - and is - scared of the Daleks. Davros psychopathic children, who prey on each and every species in the universe, thrilling at the chase and the desire to - _Exterminate._

What would you do to save a friend? What would the Doctor do?

Throughout the history of this show the Doctor's friends have predominantly been earthlings, but his best friend isn't Missy or Clara or any other companion other than the TARDIS. And, it is the TARDIS in jeopardy here, moments before the close of the episode. The Daleks point a death ray directly at the TARDIS, after having first killed Missy - possibly the doctor's oldest friend - and then a fleeing Clara - his newest. And Peter Capaldi/Twelve bangs on an airlock-door ineffectually, a prisoner, a supplicant, begging Davros.

The little boy who grew up to be a monster is unmoved, in much the same way it's implied the Doctor was unmoved once he heard a child speak his own name. And so the universe's greatest pacifist returns to a battlefield, armed with a gun and the Dalek's battle cry. Back in [_Into the Dalek_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2346128) Rusty did look into the heart of the Doctor and therein saw darkness, hatred, and emotions which had Rusty dubbing the Doctor _a good Dalek._ Here those emotions lead to a crisis point for the character and one hell of a self-fulfilling prophecy. We're meant to believe that travelling back in time to that same battlefield, now armed and with the Dalek's war cry on his lips, the Doctor will in fact kill the child Davros. 

Personally, I doubt it.

What is in no doubt is that Steven Moffat nods to, and draws on, the other most famous UK ~~export~~ story for children (and older ~~readers~~ viewers, for there are influences here from the _Potter-verse_ far more than from Lucas' _Star Wars._ Oh, not just the "nest of snakes in a dress" Colony Sarff, who makes for a more fantastic parselmouth than Voldemort, but the actual tourney itself, with its flags of primary colours calling to mind the different colours of each house at Hogwarts. And the boy Davros? The shades of Tom Riddle are overt. And, J.K. Rowling has ensured that self-fulfilling prophecies are old hat to today's children. Sir Doctor Magician with his sonic screwdriver? For all of Eleven's run bowties were cool. Twelve, of course, has now solidified himself as utterly cool (tank, electric guitar, Raybans) regardless of garb. Better yet, we're given a situation (akin to the one in _Day of the Doctor_ when his trusty deus ex machina screwdriver cannot save the day. With his friends murdered, his TARDIS hostage, and his sonic clutched in the wrinkled hand of his arch-enemy; the Doctor is in serious jeopardy as the series opener draws to a close.

If the Doctor is the Magician in this, it could be taken as read that Davros (who has the screwdriver) is the apprentice, who like Mickey in _Fantasia_ over-reached himself and caused catastrophe, [ Mickey imbuing brooms with life](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEYy3osi8Gs) (and flooding his world out) Davros creating lethal offspring. But, given the title of this weeks episode: _The Witch's Familiar_ I'd say that Clara is _probably_ the apprentice. Hopefully... Would that also make her Missy's [familiar?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familiar_spirit) ( _Familiar: A demon supposedly attending and obeying a witch, often said to assume the form of an animal._ ) I rather like the TARDIS as familiar, but damn if that title doesn't fit a captured Colony Sarff obeying High Priestess Ohila and the Sisterhood of Kahn.

_The Magician's Apprentice_ is an action-filled episode. Loud, large, fantastically paced. It is thrilling, a little bit horrifying and chilling. And the dialogue is as gorgeous as the acting. Given that it's the first of two parts, its success or failure as a story can't really be judged - yet. Most of this episode sets us up for the next. But, it is compelling. Peter Capaldi is mesmerisingly wonderful - unsurprisingly. Michelle Gomez is brilliant. So too Julian Bleach, who plays Davros. But for me, more than sets, acting, effects etc. the thrill of the episode is the way it plays with _Who_ cannon, the way it flirts with the Doctor's timeline and interlaces Tom Baker's actions into today's _Who._

Of all the Doctor's from the Classic era [FOUR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Doctor) \- i.e. Tom Baker is probably the most iconic. Endless scarf, floppy, curly hair, overlarge floppy hat, a manic grin and an overly enthusiastic twinkle in his eye. Tom Baker's Doctor - the longest running on-screen Doctor of the series - was brilliant. Nine was my Doctor, at first. Then Eleven - Thank you Matt Smith. But Peter Capaldi's Twelve, he may end up being the Doctor to match Four and Tom Baker's iconic run. 

If the writing holds.  
Of the acting I have no doubts.

Finally, given the teasing nature of Moffat's writing, did everyone notice Twelve mentions he spent a night spent in a long scarf, and the night before Clara and Missy arrive at his farewell rock-show, _in a tuxedo_? A nod to this years Christmas special, to go with [River Song's evening gown?](http://www.blastr.com/2015-9-2/alex-kingston-returns-river-song-doctor-whos-2015-christmas-special) Licensed to thrill - indeed.

_Images gakked from everywhere. Copyright mainly BBC_


End file.
